It is a sore task that God has given to the sons of men with which to occupy themselves.--Kohelet

Sunday, November 22, 2015

How Christianity Condemns Itself

Christianity is credited with being the largest religion in the world. They certainly have the biggest footprint. But, Christianity is vastly divided into many different denominations. Many of these denominations have been split into even more denominations. It seems that whenever a group of Christians are at odds with what their respective denomination is teaching, they simply start a new one. Take for example the Baptists. There are Southern Baptists, Northern Baptists, Independent Baptists, Freewill Baptists, Missionary Baptists, and others. How much difference can there be among these? Consider this, there are thousands of separate denominations of Christian churches. There must be something to this, and there is.

Christianity had it beginning in Israel in the first century of the common era. The exact history is sketchy at best. Jesus began his teaching sometime around the year 30. The earliest writings, those of Paul of Tarsus, appear some twenty years later. The gospels were written many years later. The writers of the gospels are not known. Early Christian bibles don't attribute the gospels to any specific writers. They are not named. The Catholic Church admits that the names were assigned at a later date.

The New Testament claims that Jesus came to the Hebrew people, who rejected him. It was after his death that he was preached to the gentiles. His coming to the Jews is highly problematic. Hebrew scripture has a specific test written into the law to determine if a prophet is true or false. When one applies this test to Jesus, he does not stand up to scrutiny.

1Everything I command you that you shall be careful to do it. You shall neither add to it, nor subtract from it.2If there will arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of a dream, and he gives you a sign or a wonder,3and the sign or the wonder of which he spoke to you happens, [and he] says, "Let us go after other gods which you have not known, and let us worship them," 4you shall not heed the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of a dream; for the Lord, your God, is testing you, to know whether you really love the Lord, your God, with all your heart and with all your soul.:5You shall follow the Lord, your God, fear Him, keep His commandments, heed His voice, worship Him, and cleave to Him. Deuteronomy 13:1-5 (CJB) Deuteronomy 13 full chapter

Looking closely at this we see that the false prophet can do signs and wonders (miracles) and still be a false prophet. One may argue that verse three says that the false prophet will say "let us go after other gods which you have not known..." and that Jesus was not teaching about another god. He was teaching about the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. On the surface, this seems like a strong argument. Look back at verse one. 1Everything I command you that you shall be careful to do it. You shall neither add to it, nor subtract from it. (the Christian Bible doesn't include this verse here but places it in the previous chapter.) Christianity adds Jesus himself. Christianity teaches that Jesus is God. Christianity also subtracts some things from what God commanded. If you are a Christian, you have undoubtedly heard that the Law of Moses was too hard for anyone to keep and that it was nailed to the cross along with Jesus and made void. Does that sound like it is in agreement with Deuteronomy 13:1?